A foiled terrorist plot in British Columbia earlier this week shows that Canada’s security is adequate, says an expert, but will also contribute to growing concerns about domestic terrorism.

On Tuesday, the RCMP announced it had intercepted a Canada Day terrorist attack that was planned to take place outside the provincial legislature in Victoria the day before.

It was one of two recent alleged terrorist plots in the country. In April, the RCMP announced it had foiled a plot to derail Via Rail trains travelling through the Toronto-New York City corridor.

“We’ve had two successful interventions (recently),” said Christian Leuprecht, a professor of political science and security expert at Royal Military College and Queen’s University. “It would appear … that our security forces are doing an adequate job of protecting us.”

On July 1, there were thousands on-site in Victoria for the celebrations. The RCMP said they seized the explosives before the crowds gathered, as they had been tracking the suspects for some time.

Two Canadian citizens — John Nuttall and Amanda Korody — were arrested and charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity, possessing an explosive substance and conspiring to commit an indictable offence.

Leuprecht said the plot is an example of growing concerns towards “homegrown,” or domestic, terrorism.

“One of the challenges about homegrown terrorism is that these folks are not usually part of some large international network,” he said. “Rather, (they are) a couple people with some grievance who decide they want to do something.”

This can make their plots harder to detect than those tied to larger terrorist organizations.

“There’s a much greater risk that one day someone, somewhere will slip through,” he said.

Leuprecht noted that homegrown terrorism isn’t a new concept.

The majority of terrorist attacks over the past 100 years, he said, have been responses to what terrorists perceive to be local and national threats — not international ones.

Even international terrorist groups like al-Qaida have promoted the basic notion behind “homegrown” terrorism for many years.

“People have written about this as al-Qaida-inspired,” he said of the most recent allegations. “And I think it is on several levels. Al-Qaida’s message since 9/11 has very much been ‘think globally but act locally.’ So, do harm where you are rather than travel across the world to do harm somewhere else. ”

The details of the Canada Day plot bear resemblance to a successful attack that was carried out earlier this year: the Boston Marathon bombings, which many have also labelled as al-Qaida-inspired.

Like in Boston, the accused in this week’s incident were also domestic. The explosive devices seized by the police on Monday were similar to the pressure cooker bombs used in April at the marathon bombing site.

Despite the similarities, there has been no identified connection between the two plots.

Leuprecht believes there is a general “psychology of terrorism” that makes the public fear attacks more than they should.

“It takes over our minds and we think all of a sudden we need to take these drastic measures,” he said, adding that the risk of being killed or injured by a terrorist incident in Canada is low.

That said, he feels this week’s incident should prompt more vigilance. He sees it as an opportunity to create dialogue regarding our country’s security, intelligence and law enforcement.

“It certainly gives us the opportunity for us Canadians to think about the relationship between security, freedom and democracy,” he said, “and where Canada needs to be to ensure that the tools we have are in line with the expectations, values and norms of Canadians.”